Where Islam spreads, freedom dies

An alleged rapist and child pimp told a 15-year-old girl that he was doing nothing wrong by delivering her to numerous Pakistani men for sex because “in his country you’re allowed to have sex with girls from the age of 11”, a court was told yesterday.The 59-year-old man, who cannot be named, is one of 11 men accused of a series of sexual offences over a two-year period against young teenagers from Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Five vulnerable girls, aged from 13 to 15, are said to have been groomed with gifts of alcohol, food and money by men whose aim was to use them for sex before sharing them with their friends and relatives.

On the second day of the trial, a jury at Liverpool Crown Court watched filmed police interviews from 2008 in which the 15-year-old described seven occasions when the 59-year-old forced her to have sex with him or other men. She said that she was first raped on a bare mattress in a room above a kebab shop after the man gave her a litre of vodka to make her “more relaxed”.

He allegedly then told the teenager that having sex with him was “part of the deal”, saying: “I bought you vodka. You have to give me something.”

The court was told that after they heard the girl’s child abuse allegations in August 2008, “police officers who looked into the matter didn’t take the investigation further”.

Despite speaking to detectives, the girl continued to be subjected to regular sexual abuse by a widening group of men. Her exploitation is finally said to have ended when she became pregnant five months later.

In her 2008 interview, the slim teenager — her voice at times barely rising above a whisper — sat hunched forward, arms crossed protectively in front of her body as she gave a detailed account of her abuse.

She said that pressure had repeatedly been placed on her to have sex with the man, his friends and once, “for a treat”, with his nephew.

The crimes began one afternoon when she was very hungry and agreed to go to a kebab shop with another girl who said she knew “somewhere we could get food for free”. The teenager said they were taken into a back room of the shop and given vodka. The other girl went upstairs with the chef. The 59-year-old then asked her to go upstairs with him “just to talk”.

She said that she was scared and told “the old man” that she did not want to have sex with him but he took no notice, even though she was crying. She felt “dirty and disgusting”.The court heard that he and other men subsequently had sex with her in cars, flats and houses. She was also taken to have sex with men in Oldham and Bradford. “He kept bringing people, making me have sex with them and then giving me money to keep my mouth shut,” the girl said.

She said that on one occasion, she told him that she was 15 and that he would “get done if I tell the police”.

“[He] was saying he won’t get done, because in his country he can have sex with girls from the age of 11.”

The 11 men, aged from 21 to 59, deny numerous offences including 12 rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual activity with a child, sexual assault and six counts of trafficking a child within the UK for sexual exploitation.